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At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Rivington, James (1724-1802) to Henry Knox

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC02437.00138 Author/Creator: Rivington, James (1724-1802) Place Written: New York, New York Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 20 April 1774 Pagination: 2p. +addr.+docket. 30.5 cm. x 19.2 cm. Order a Copy

Sends Knox pamphlets which he believes Knox does not have and will be of interest to his customers. Mentions that he has printed a letter to John Hancock in Rivington's New-York Gazetteer and would provide the opportunity for any of Hancock's friends to reply to it. Sent a print for Paul Revere to make an engraving. Hancock was then a Boston selectman and member of the General Court. The letter was possibly a response to Hancock's general anti-British stance or his recent Massacre Day Oration, given in March 1774. Rivington was a bookseller, printer, and journalist who came to America in 1760.

[excerpt]
"… You will find in my paper, of tomorrows date, a Letter to Col Hancock I was under a necessity of printing it, as a Controversial peice [sic] it is wrote with a more decent Temper than the [generality] of such productions, and as [strikeout] I should apprehend I run no risque by disobliging the Colonel, which I would be sorry should be the Case. I by printing the peice [sic] in my Gazetteer secure an opportunity for any of his friends to reply to it. I troubled you with a print which hope Mr Reviere will finish as highly as that sent As a Copy …"

Rivington, James, 1724-1802
Knox, Henry, 1750-1806
Hancock, John, 1737-1797
Revere, Paul, 1735-1818

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